Louise Welsh - Naming the Bones

The Elephant House was jam-packed, but Meikle had managed to bag the same seat that an insecure Mafia don would have chosen, near the back corner of the second, larger room commanding a good view of the café and ready access to the fire escape. Murray eased his way through the tables to greet Meikle and check on his order, then retraced an apologetic route back, past the glass cabinets stuffed with elephant ornaments to the front counter and the long queue to get served. When his turn came he asked for an Americano, a café latte and two elephant-shaped shortbreads, then negotiated his way back to the corner table, holding the tray carefully, praying he wouldn’t upset it, and if he did that it wouldn’t be over an occupant of one of the three-wheeled buggies that were making his journey so perilous.

Meikle folded the Evening News he’d been reading into a baton and slid it into the pocket of the anorak hanging on the back of his chair. Murray lowered the tray onto the table then unloaded the cups, slopping a little of the black coffee onto its saucer.

‘Sorry that was so long, there’s a big queue.’

Meikle gave the shortbread a stern look. ‘If one of those is for me, you’ve wasted your money.’

‘Watching your figure?’

‘Diabetes. Diagnosed three years ago.’

A vision of his father flashed into Murray’s head. He wrapped the shortbread in a paper serviette and slid it into the pocket of his jacket.

‘That’s not much fun.’

‘Eat your bloody biscuit.’ Impatience made George’s voice loud. One of the yummy mummies turned a hard stare on them, but he ignored her. ‘Biscuits I can stand. It’s the booze I find hard to watch folk with, and I’ve been off that twenty years.’

‘Since Archie went.’

Meikle shook his head.

‘You’ve got the bit between your teeth, right enough.’ He leaned forward. ‘An unhealthy obsession with your subject may be an advantage in your line, but remember Lunan only touched a small portion of my life. I’m sixty-five now, due for retirement at the end of the year. I’ve not seen Archie since we were nigh-on twenty-six. My quitting the drink had nothing to do with him. It was necessary, that’s all.’

Murray held up his hands in surrender.

‘Like you say, it’s a bit of an obsession.’ He took his tape recorder from his rucksack and set it on the table. ‘Do you have any objection to me recording our chat?’

‘Do what you have to.’

Murray hit Record and beyond the window of the small machine cogs began to roll, scrolling their voices onto the miniature tape.

‘So what was he like?’

George’s face froze in a frown, like an Edwardian gentleman waiting on the flash of a camera.

‘When I knew him he was a great guy.’

Murray rewound the tape and pressed Play. George’s voice repeated against the backdrop of café noise, When I knew him he was a great guy.

‘Jesus, I hope you’re not going to do that every time I say something.’

The young mother gave George another look. This time he held her gaze until she glanced away. He muttered, ‘You’d think no one ever had a fucking bairn before.’

Murray bit the head off one of the elephants and pressed Record again.

‘So what made him a great guy?’

Meikle answered with a question of his own.

‘What do you know about Archie?’

‘The work. Basic stuff, where he was born, his death of course, and a few things in-between. I’ve been interested in him since I was sixteen, but I’m only starting serious research into his life now.’

‘Have you talked to Christie?’

‘I’ve corresponded with her. She’s promised to meet me.’

‘And do you think she will?’

‘I hope so.’

George nodded his head.

‘Fair enough.’ He hesitated. ‘I’m not sure what it is you want to know.’

‘Whatever you want to tell me. First impressions. You said he was a great guy, what was so great about him? Did he consider himself a poet when you knew him?’

George raised the mug slowly to his mouth, as if it wasn’t the drink he wanted so much as the thinking time. He cradled the cup in his hands for a moment, then set it down, running a finger thoughtfully along the rim, rubbing away a thin brown stain of coffee.

‘When I first met Archie he didn’t know what he was. I mean I think he knew that he wanted to be a poet when he was in his pram. He was always straight about that, but he still wasn’t sure about who he was. He was a west-coaster like yourself, but he was living here in Edinburgh and he’d spent his early years on one of the islands, so his accent would scoot about north, east and west.’

‘Everywhere except the south.’

Meikle laughed.

‘That’s one thing that hasn’t changed. You don’t find many Scotsmen aspiring to come from the south, not the ones who stay, anyway. But what I meant was his voice reflected the way he was, unsettled, always trying out new personas. ’

‘So would you say his personality was split?’

‘Jekyll and Hyde? That would be convenient for your book, wouldn’t it? No, nothing as dramatic as that, not when I knew him anyway.’ He paused and took another sip of coffee, more thinking time. ‘But you could say that Archie had two sides to him, the Glaswegian who wasn’t going to take any shit and the mystical islander. Neither of them was a perfect fit.’

Murray scribbled in his notebook.

2 personas, hard v mystical, but not J & H

‘I’m not sure what else to say. We were just two young blokes who liked a drink and a craic.’

‘At a risk of sounding like Julie Andrews, start at the very beginning. How did you and Archie meet?’

Meikle shook his head. His expression was still stern, but Murray thought he could detect the hint of a smile behind the straight-set lips.

‘That was typical Archie. I had a room up in Newington at the time, not so far from where we are now, student digs, a bed, a Baby Belling, an excuse of a sink and a shared lavvy in the stair. I was coming home along Nicholson Street one night. It was late, but not quite pub chucking-out time. That road’s not so different now than it was then, unlike the rest of Edinburgh, that’s turned into a bloody theme park.’ Meikle took another sip of coffee and gave Murray a half-apologetic glance, as if he hated these tangents as much as his listener. ‘Aye, well, as I was saying, it was typical Archie, but I wasn’t to know that then.’

George grinned, getting into his stride, and Murray realised that this was a story he had told before. He wrote in his notebook, Well-established anecdote.

‘I turned off into Rankeillor Street. It was a rare night, cold but clear, with a full moon. I could see the outline of Salisbury Crags beyond the end of the street. I remember that distinctly because it was a Friday night and I’d been thinking about taking a climb up there in the morning. Maybe it was the full moon, they say that does funny things to you, but suddenly I felt like I had the energy for the climb right then. I was half-wondering if I should go ahead or if it was the drink that was doing my thinking for me and whether I might end up falling face-first off some cliff or catching my death from hypothermia. Maybe I was aware of the group of lads at the other end of the street, but I wasn’t really paying any attention, I was imagining what it would be like at the top of the hill in the dark with only the moon and the sheep for company. I’d more or less decided to go for it when I heard shouting. It was Archie, though I didn’t know that at the time. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but what I could see was that the other three lads were laying into him. I’ve never been much of a fighter, but it was three-to-one, and even from that distance and in the dark I could tell that Archie had a body more suited to wielding a pen than a pair of boxing gloves. So one minute I’m in quiet contemplation, the next I’m running towards the four of them, yelling my head off. They had your man on the ground by this time and they were beginning to put the boot in. I don’t know why my appearance on the scene should have made any difference. It still wouldn’t have been even odds, not with Archie on the ground the way he was. Maybe they’d finished with him, or maybe they didn’t have the stomach for more, because the lads kind of jogged off, not running, but moving at a faster-than-walking pace. They shouted some abuse, but I wasn’t going to let that bother me. Truth be told, once I stopped running and yelling, I started to get the shakes. Still, I think I was pretty pleased with myself, a bit smug, you know? Archie was still on the pavement. I leaned down to give him a hand up and that’s when it happened. He landed me a good one square in the face.’ George laughed and shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe it. ‘Before I knew it, the two of us were scrapping in the street. Then came the blue light. I guess someone in the tenements must have called the police when the first fight was kicking off. They charged the pair of us with drunk and disorderly and shoved us in separate cells for the night. My one and only arrest.’